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Mander, 2009a), where individuals express positive environmental attitudes
which fail to translate into appropriate behaviour. Southerton et al (2004a)
question the focus on individuals in environmental policy and consumption
approaches:
Consumption is embedded in the way that different social
groups engage in practices and that practices are almost always
shared enterprises that are performed in the (co-) presence of
others and therefore subject to collective norms of contextual-
ized engagement. (Southerton et al, 2004b, p34)
A social practices approach therefore challenges the perspective that individu-
als have the agency to act independently from society as a whole and its
institutionalized structures. Southerton et al (2004a) question the assumption
that people will act differently if they understand the impacts of their actions.
They argue that such a view fails 'to appreciate the socially situated and
socially structured character of consumption' (p5) and that the focus on indi-
vidual consumers ignores 'the intersection between design, demand and use'
(p5). In this perspective, the view that consumers are key to change is chal-
lenged (Chappells et al, 2004). Individual responsibility is analysed in
conjunction with social structure (Spaargaren, 2004). The approach links the
actor-orientated perspective, described above, with the structures available in
society. These structures are both physical, in terms of, for example, transport
infrastructure, and determined by societal structures and social rules which
reproduce particular social practices (Spaargaren and van Vliet, 2000). This is
not to say that people have no individual agency to choose at all, but the abil-
ity to choose is delineated by the practices available (Warde, 2005).
Examples of physical structures within tourism include both transport
infrastructure and the virtual dimensions, such as online booking facilities that
shape the choices available. For example, van Goeverden (2009) found that
the obligation to make seat reservations reduced the attractiveness of long-
distance trains for some market segments. Societal structures can reinforce
particular behaviour patterns, and various social rules and resources bind
people to particular strategies. For example, there is an institutionalized struc-
ture to the working day which has determined time, space and transport
infrastructure (Cass et al, 2004). From a tourism perspective, rules about
available paid holiday and the convention of this time being taken in one-week
blocks, linked in part to school holidays, structures the time available for
holidays and tourism infrastructure provision. The increasing availability of
fast transport (especially air travel), together with a restricted time frame, has
structured holidays on the premise of a quick getaway to a relaxing destina-
tion where travel time is minimized and destination time maximized. Other
industry structures may also reinforce behaviour. For instance, loyalty schemes
such as Air Miles, accumulated by an individual through regular business
travel, can be used in leisure time, and generate additional flying (Gössling and
Nilsson, 2009). Furthermore, industry structures linked to ownership and
control of the tourism sector may limit opportunities for equitable access to
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